I appreciate the love! That was a huge incentive for me to get started in the first place: wanting to see someone review things that I grew up with, mainly DOS games.

Hey LGR, please keep this here forever, i had a very nostalgic feeling watching this video and the computers you are using here, I remember my grandfather PC because of you, it is a really good feeling. Thank you! If possible can you please make a refresher video for 2021-22 on buying dos computers. I think it would help me, as well as many other people get into classic retro games.

Hey LGR, you should make a refresher video for 2015 on buying dos computers. I think it would help me, as well as many other people get into classic retro games. Thank you, Kevin

Clint, you NEED to film an update to this video, outlining your new picks and current pricing on markets like eBay.

I really loved this old style of videos that you did at the time.

Wow I am just looking back at your old vids and you have come so far. Keep up the good work!!!

Personally I preffer the 486dx2 66 with vesa local bus for a dos machine. Its one of the fastest machines released before the plug and play and PCI age, brought by Windows 95 and Pentium CPU. With turbo function off or disabling L1 and L2 cache you have also a 286 for the price of one computer. Thus it is possible to run games published in a vast period of time. Only the last ones dos games (like dosquake and Duke 3d) wont run in such pc.

This video is great. I love the background music as well as the tips you given. However, I haven't had any problems with DosBox so far, but I'll certainly watch this in case I want to build a classic DOS-PC one day.

I love your intros, especially these older ones with the can of coke, hilarious!

I certainly appreciate it, I'm glad you enjoy!

Holy crap, this is like the video I've been waiting for...Lately I've been talking SO MUCH about how I want a classic DOS/3.1 computer to play all these old games like they should be played...This will definitely be a great help. Thanks again, man!

That red "3dfx" pc I showed is almost that exactly! Win9x, P2 at 233Mhz. Lovely machine for the majority of DOS gaming! BTW, love the ICS PC repair vids you posted, I've had fun watching those.

Forget my last comment on your NEC Portable review! This is perfect.

I tried it with the DosBox installer like that as well as through a codecs package, and it still denied it. Premiere really, really sucks for video many formats as well as capturing from certain devices... Thanks for the help though

@viperxeon I keep them clean and out of sunlight and I don't smoke. That helps tremendously. Otherwise, it's just up to the kind of flame retardants that were used in the plastic where they were made. Some plastics have a tendency to yellow no matter when, and for that you'll just need to use some Retr0Bright solution on them.

Just putting DOS 6.22 mainly, although I also installed a Sound Blaster 16 and SVGA card for increased compatibility.

DosBox has a great capture ability built in, yes. But my problem with it is the format of AVI it uses for some reason doesn't work properly with my editing program, Adobe Premiere CS4. Either the video doesn't show or the sound and video are corrupt. It's strange, though I haven't tried it with Win7 so maybe I'll have to try again.

@TheLogicman1 Hey and thanks! A-Train is a pure DOS game, so Windows ME wouldn't be the best choice to try and run it. 98SE or lower is the very latest I've gotten it to work with somewhat, but really the best is a pure DOS environment... it can be quite particular. You'd have far better luck running it on any newer PC with the DosBox emulator.

@charger334 Yes, I use a program called HJSplit. It works perfectly for splitting DOS files up for floppy transfers.

Installed it and I still get the same problems... I can capture through DosBox and then convert those ZMBV files to WMV or something that Premiere accepts. But it's annoying to do that when I can get the same or better quality through Camtasia.

@TommyDDoom Not bad. Unless you want to play the later DOS games, like Blood, Carmageddon, or Quake very well at least. 32MB RAM and a much larger hard drive would do wonders. And you left out CPU, which is a pretty vital stat. For that setup I'd recommend a 75-100MHz 486DX/4, although a Pentium will be better for the aforementioned later DOS games.

Yes, if you have the proper drive hooked up and working on the host PC, you can use DOSBox to read from it. It's much simpler to just use an ISO or disk image though.

@PkInWild Oh yeah, it's overkill for most DOS stuff. Anything faster than a 486DX/33 is probably more than you'll need. But that one's for playing the last DOS games from like 1997-98, like Carmageddon, Shadow Warrior and Quake, which actually push it to its limits, even with a Voodoo accelerator card installed. It can still play the older stuff too though, so long as it's not one of those games that requires a slow CPU to play.

I really liked the tips. Gotta agree with all of them and my personal favorite, of all the machines, was the last one. I would just like to add that having a GOOD sound card - AWE32, for instance - really helps on midi based games, as it pumps the sound quality quite a bit.

@LL1K Sound Blaster 16. It's what I used in my Vectra.

@PkInWild Do you mean the tower shown a little after that? That was a 400Mhz Pentium II MMX

Old computers scare me lol... I've always been afriad that damn monitor will crush my fucking legs..

I use 3 different dos PC's for different times 1. Tandy 1000 RL/HD for old CGA games and Tandy games. MS-DOS 3.3. 30 MB Disk. 2. IBM PC AT for EGA and early VGA games. MS-DOS 3.3. 30 MB Disk. 3. Custom Super Socket 7 AMD K6 II+ for everything from a 386 to a Pentium II. MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows 98 Dual-Boot, C: is the boot and MS-DOS drive (for both 6.22 and 7.1) and D: is for Windows. C: is 2 GB, D: is 8 GB.

Dude I am loving the Sc3k music on your vids. Rock on!

Yes it was, good ear! (and thanks! it's always a good choice IMO)

Bought a Pentium 1 Based Compaq Deskpro 2000 off eBay for $19. Was in need of a good cleanout and some extra screws here and there but it works fine and came with quite a bit of software!

Very interesting video. thanks dude!

I said Win9x, which is a totally different beast from XP regarding DOS. Yes, you can probably get something working with XP. But honestly, if you're using a later Windows PC, you may as well just use DOSBox. No hacks, cracks, or extra utilities needed, and the games are likely going to look and play better. The video is for a specific person: one wanting a true DOS gaming experience, without the need for emulation, work-arounds, or other assorted facets relating to using more modern hardware.

LGR, What's your preference on graphics/screen types for dos and win 95 games? I heard "stay away" from SVGA and the dtsn (I think I spelled that right) as they can have ghosting and trailing movement on scrolling dos games. I recently bought a Pentium II I'm going to use for dos games. One reason I chose it was it's TFT display. Thanks and your channel rocks. Keep up the good work!

@01EmptyBox A GeForce 2 will likely be fine, most games will see it as a VESA/SVGA-capable video card from my experience. You shouldn't really need any drivers or anything, other than maybe some standard VESA drivers for a game or two and usually the game comes with them - but this is a minor issue you probably won't run into. As for a setup for DOS 6.22 on CD, it was only on floppies. But you can download the installation from places like Vetusware's website and burn it to a disc if you want.

Ahh the wonderful world of Dos! I just finished custom building my MS-DOS machine and it's so fulfilling turning it on for the first time and seeing it in action! It's currently running Dos 6.21 and works like a charm! The only problem though is finding games. At least in my area and some people's prices on eBay are absolutely ridiculous.

I wish the frame rate was a bit higher on Camtasia, but it gets the job done. I hate paying too, but I've been using it for years for capturing PowerPoint shows and such and it works, so I've held onto that license!

Ahhh, proper computers, seeing other peoples DOS systems brings a smile to my face for some strange reason! :D I find a P2 around 266Mhz on 98SE with a proper DOS environment set up to be a good all-rounder for this task. You should do a "make a video about your dos PC" it'd be fun.

My Windows 98 machine has an s-video out port, my Windows 95/DOS machines I use an SVGA->S-Video converter box (it's a scanline converter which accepts 640x480), and my IBM 5150 has a CGA card with composite output. I then use a USB capture device on my Windows 7 PC. For the newest games I use the capture program Fraps. Otherwise, I'll just use DosBox with a capture app like Camtasia, if the above options aren't feasible.

@LL1K Well, I found them on the internet mostly... forums like the Vintage Computer Forums, other KZfaq members, many on eBay, AtariAge users, but also local thrift stores, Craigslist and friends. Anywhere and everywhere really.

I know your whole theme is older computers but you should really do a review on the current computer you run windows 7 on. It would be interesting to see the specs you have for that one since you do play so many Sims 3 games and do reviews on them.

This is why I have 4 DOS PC's IBM 5150 w/ DOS 3.3 IBM PS/2 286 w/ DOS 6.22 IBM 300GL PI w/ Win 3.1 and an HP Pavilion 7090 w/ Win95 Good video! I am an artist, but gaming is a big hobby of mine! An even bigger hobby, figuring out how to display and organize all of your machines.

Pretty cool, love vintage gaming stuff...

I remember that HP Vectra machine, my step father had one at his work and also former neighbours had one too. In what way did you modify the computer to run DOS games?

MAN... I am so jealous. Love that red tower. I would love a rig that also has a 5.25 floppy in addition to the 3.5 and CD drive. My first PC ever was a 5150, later the family upgraded to an IBM PS/2 386 with Windows 3.1, my next machine was a Pentium II with a Voodoo 2 and Soundblaster. I miss them all :-(

Very informative! I kept a few mobos from the old days and sold the large towers since I just didn't have the space to store them. Man, those were the days. I still remember running out to buy a $300 SB Awe32 and spending $600 on 16MB of RAM! :P

I like this intro for your videos, not the shorter one.

@Lachlant1984 I downgraded the CPU from 233Mhz to 120Mhz, installed a pure MS-DOS 6.22 OS, and installed an SB16 sound card. Just to make things nice and smooth for the vast majority.

Thank goodness Clint ditched the VHS camera! The content was still solid, though. The irony of this is, by the time I got my first usable computer in 1997 (the Tandy CoCo 2 I got in 1987 doesn’t count and was already quite obsolete even then), I was using it for internet access and late high school / early college work and not gaming. I have never been a PC gamer. I grew up on the Atari 2600, NES, and SNES. So, I have no idea why I find this so interesting when I don't even have DOS games I remember playing. There were two exceptions. 1) We briefly played the original _Sim City_ at school in my eighth-grade computer class as part of the curriculum. We didn’t spend much time on it, but I thought it was intriguing. 2) I briefly flirted with playing _Descent 2_ on my 1997 PC, but I never had time to really get into that one. My mom was an elementary school teacher, and starting in 1994, she got to bring the Macintosh LC575 from her classroom home for the summer break. I loved using it to make art projects. I was never any good at real painting or drawing, but I could do that quite well. I wish I had spent more time later on investing in graphic design skills. She had some silly educational games for young kids, but I was 14 at the beginning of that phase, so none of that interested me. I just liked to "paint." We never hooked that Mac up to the internet. I don’t remember if it even had a modem.

Other than eBay, no idea. I'm also in the same boat: first PC was a Packard Bell Legend 486, hate myself for trashing it. Searched eBay and many other places for years looking for another, and have never once found one for a decent price. One or two show up for a few hundred bucks, but that's insane for a regular ol' PC of that age.

what would you recommend for music trackers?

what monitor should i use? I found an old laptop, which is a 390x thinkpad, installed mortal kombat ii and found the graphics to be quite pixelated. the native resolution I believe is 1024x768, that seems a bit high for older games, maybe it's the fact that it's not crt as well, but which is more the case for the pixelation? I'll be up(down)grading to a more proper retro machine in the future, so is the problem the high resolution or the fact that it is not a crt monitor? or both? also, subbed:)

Awesome video thanks helped me a lot but before i want to ask so i want to play games from 1992 to about 1999 being wolfenstein 3d being my oldest and system shock 2 being the newest i would play. What would be the best pc to get to play these games. Would i have to download windows 95 or 98 or do i need a dos boot disc? Would a p5 (i think its called) work? any help would be appreciated thanks

a little noob question, ive a p3 500 mhz with win 98 se... it plays good a lot of old dos games (in dos mode of course), the question is: do you think is better to make another partition with a classic dos OS like 6,22 to achieve better compatibility?

Don't know if you still check this video anymore, but your thoughts on the setup I'm working on at the moment? 486 DX4-100, 32MB RAM, SoundBlaster AWE64 Value, S3 Trio, on a Shuttle 433 PCI/ISA hybrid board. It seems to be between the second and third classes you mention there. I'm in my mid 20s and am mostly wanting to play games from around 1990 to 1998 ish, with a heavy emphasis on Epic and Apogee titles. Do you think its a good setup for that?

Hey, awesome video and channel! Can you use modern CD-ROM drives with the old computers? I would hate to have to use my CREATIVE LABS 2x that I used back in the day- it took 7 mins to load Wing Commander, and it took me only 30 seconds to die!

@MrGameboy1989 Ha, now that was awesome. Thanks for the link!

Likely $500-600 depending on options like the monitor, hard drive, case and power supply

@phreakindee I have been playing alot of MUD game's recently through telnet. What computer could I get for using telnet? Of course I mostly want one to enjoy the whirr of the drive, the keyboard, and the green glow of the monitor.. So ya..

is there some way of a spliting a file into smaller pieces so i can fit it onto 1.44mb floppy disks so u can transfer it to a computer running dos?

Should be, yeah. You'll just need to install some compatible DOS CD-ROM drivers and make sure the thing is set up to run them when needed (using good ol' MSCDEX or whatever).

First of all, GREAT video because I'd like to get PC for DOS gaming! But if you get one with Windows '95 already installed-and I would think it would be hard not to-can you still run DOS games on it, and if so, how?

Just a quick question. I am planning on using a Pentium-3-based computer for ALL of my retro PC gaming (so games from 02 and back pretty much), and I was wondering just how good of a job slow-down utilities do for old DOS games. Also keep in mind I have the old os's and managed to score a OEM copy of windows 3.11 (not for workgroups).

@fortifythamind There were several, but most common for those 386-era machines was 30-pin SIMMs.

Is there a good brand/type of laptop for DOS games? The ones I try always seem to have odd graphics and sound cards. Espesially the sound cards seem to be clones with weird memory adresses...

My dad use to play DOS games in the early to about 1995 games on his i think 386 computer. Had a bad ass sound card in it. These days i play older games through DOS Box.

That is an awesome system indeed, should play most anything but the very latest DOS games with ease. Epic and Apogee titles should be no problem at all.

Just a question, today i got my very first old computer, gifted by one of my friends, it have a celeron 256 mhz, 32 mb of ram, floppy drive (3.5) and cd drive. I just need to buy a sound blaster 32 ISA and a new HD, then the computer should work properly with any dos games, but the question is, if use a geforce 2 as videocard , did i need to do something special or i have to get an older card? then where i can find some CD setup of dos 6.22? sorry for my bad english.

Hey dude! Do you think a pentium mmx is too fast for a lot of dos classics? I would love to go from doom 2 to sierra adventure games to commander keen and the original duke nukems. 'what do you think?

Just curious, would it be possible to just get a USB-floppy drive for my pc an run the games through dosbox? Just so I can run the games from my current pc until I get one that phreakindee recommended? And is possible how would I run the legit games?

would a compaq Presario 2200 be a good computer for gaming?

Much love for the Packard Bell. My first PC was a Packard Bell with a 486SX25 and 4 glorious MB of RAM. No idea what video card came with it other than it approximated a Sound Blaster Pro with... some degree of accuracy.

Hi there, love your channel :) I have an old Windows ME with Intel Pentium III (3) Will this be able to play "A-Train?"

Was that some SimCity music I heard in the background? Great choice! :)

Not if you know where to (patiently) look. Have you looked on eBay or somewhere like the Vintage Computer Forums? These machines and their parts are all over the place. If they're not there today, they'll probably be there soon.

hey lgr, can you do a review of dungeon siege with or without legends of arrana? i really like the game, and i love hearing your humor.

@Gregunit You know the phrase "they just don't make 'em like they used to"? It's not just an overused catch-all motto! Many things really did have a higher build quality back then. Otherwise, I don't know. Bad luck I guess.

Hey Clint! Do you have any tips on how to make a CD-ROM drive work with dos 6.22..?

@Nyocurio DOSBox is an emulator, and as such it has its problems inherent with emulation. Incompatibility, speed issues, imperfect video and sound emulation, etc. It's nice in a pinch, but it's not the same as a real DOS machine. FreeDOS is just an OS, like DOS. It either needs to run under an emulator or on real hardware.

I agree with this, I got 2 pre-built 486 pcs for $50 each. Just upgraded one to am5x86, the other is a small Unisys Cwd4002 which is nice and portable but no cd drive can be added to it. I got around this buy using a parallel zip drive instead to get large files onto it, though I considered getting a ide to compact flash adapter to replace the hdd with a bootable cf.

Great Video. Ive just got myself a Win 95 box running a pcchips M585LMR motherboard. I cant find Win 95 Drivers anywhere. does anyone know a good spot to look? or do you think I should just try putting DOS only on it?

any chance you got a MPU-401AT PC to MIDI interface card??? or any working 486 MOBO's ... 486DX2-66 CPU's.... VLB video cards, Sound blaster Pro, Sound Blaster AWE32, AWE 64... Let me know... thx

Where I can buy the serial monitor?

I need to either acquire or assemble a good DOS gaming PC sometime. I used to have a 486 box that worked great for DOS gaming, but it's in storage 4 hours away from my house, and I'm not even sure if the motherboard will still work because it had one of those barrel batteries on it and I wouldn't be surprised if it has burst by now.

So LGR, if I wanted to run the DOS versions of MechWarrior 2, Ghost Bear Legacy, and Mercenaries (I may or may not really like the whole BattleTech franchise), what should I be looking for?

Excellent! :D That's what I was planning to do before.

Most anything made in the past 3 years should be just fine for MMO's. If you're looking to build one: Core 2 Duo or Athlon/Phenom x2 256-512MB GeForce 8800 or equivalent ATI card 2GB RAM Windows XPSP3 or 7 I've used a similar setup for years and it runs things fine, even Crysis is quite playable. The rest of the hardware is pretty much whatever you want.

i picked up a hp pavilion with me and a packerd bell with 98 and i put ms dos on the packerd bell but i cant find sound drivers...

I have a Soundblaster AWE 64 Gold with 12MB memory, do you guys think a Gravis Ultrasound would be a useful upgrade? (Machine is a Celeron 500, 512MB RAM, Intel AL440LX, S3 Savage 4 with DVI output)

what was the last one called, what should i search to find one

@MasterGamerful Or literally any one of thousands of comparable clones! :D That's the thing with PCs... no need to list any brands because you don't really have to. A PC is a PC is a PC, for the most part.

Hello um what is the first microsoft computer with a color gui

Where did you get that sweat 3dfx case? I'm in love with it

Hah, I used to have one of those HP vectra computers but min was a 166mhz Pentium MMX with 16MB (or was it 32) RAM. Great video!

i want to play duke nukem, wolfenstein 3d, and doom, should i get a 486?

@phreakindee Thanks for the answer! I simply installed dos 7.1 cd install ver, everything works fine, tested blood, duke3d, doom and all of them runs whitout problems. i only had problems with keen4, fucked ups colors, i thinks caused by the geforce 2 non detected well... Will check that soon. Keep your videos up, you're an awesome guy! thanks again.

I have a crush on the 486 generation. There are some fine processors, which came out at the end of this era around 1995. For example, i got an AMD X5-133 overclocked to 160MHz. Best 486 cpu i ever had. Coupled with a Matrox Millenium and a SB AWE32. Good DOS Machine. Playing like back in the days ! I also had a Pentium III for DOS games, but for me it just had to be a machine from a time, when DOS was really present and used. Also built a 386 for late 80s and early 90s games.

I got an old industrial PC from my Company, a Pentium MMX. It´s really amazing and pretty rare i guess. It has not a common mainboard. It has a PICMG board. CPU and RAM are on a full size CPU card. I´ve never seen anything like this before :) Just turned it into a DOS game machine. Also added a Soundblaster 16 and a Voodoo card :) Im very happy with that thing.

I just got a laptop (lack of vital space to have a normal computer). An Compaq armada 4130T. 1G HHDD, 32m ram, sb16 1mb SVGA. It comes with windows 95. I am tempted to install Dos 6.22 and Win 3.11, but if I manage to get a PCMCIA CDROM drive i fear I can miss some games.... What will you do if you where on my shoes, considering Is my only DOS computer?

$20, eBay. Granted, it was quite a few years ago.